Themes
Preety M. Bhandari is currently the Director for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management Division of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department (SDCC) at ADB, and also serving as Chief of Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management thematic group. She is responsible for providing policy and strategic direction to ADB’s climate change program and also leads the work on climate finance, with a particular focus on accessing finance from the Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Coordination of ADB’s activities in disaster risk management is also part of her portfolio.
Prior to joining ADB, she was heading the Finance, Technology and Capacity Building Program of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She led the support to the international negotiations on climate finance, which culminated in the launch of GCF and the Standing Committee on Finance. She coordinated the establishment of the Technology Mechanism under the Convention, which includes the Climate Technology Centre and Network. She has also worked as the Director of the Policy Analysis Division at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) in India. She has over 28 years of experience in environment, climate change and sustainable development, having worked on projects across Asia, and in multicultural and diverse organizations. She is on the editorial board of Climate Policy and has in the past served as a member of the core group on climate change, established by the Government of India to assess India’s strategy for the UN climate change negotiations.